Welcome to episode 246 (“Metaverse Rising”) of the EdTech Situation Room from January 19, 2022, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed new Apple rumors about Mac Pro computers and a “portless” iPhone 14. New metaverse patents by WalMart and Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook) as well as the enormous challenges of moderating social media and the emerging metaverse specifically were highlighted. The Democratic bill to address surveillance capitalism by “banning online surveillance advertising” was discussed. A new study showing we’re spending a third of of our waking hours looking at our smartphone screens, A really fast ARM processor for Chromebooks, and fast new HP Chromebooks were also highlighted. The health and wellness app “Welltory” and the recent cyberattack against Albuquerque Public Schools were topics rounding out the show. Geeks of the Week included Podchaser.com, the Chrome extension OneTab and the amazing “Moonrise Podcast” from the Washington Post. Our show was live streamed and archived simultaneously on YouTube Live as well as our Facebook Live page via StreamYard.com, and compressed to a smaller video version (about 100MB) on AmazonS3 using Handbrake software. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights (normally) if you can at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC. All shownotes are available on http://edtechSR.com/links. Please sign up for our NEW SubStack newsletter to receive all our show links each week in your inbox, including links we are not able to discuss on edtechsr.substack.com. Stay savvy and safe!
Welcome to episode 187 (“Embrace CloudReady in Our Pandemic”) of the EdTech Situation Room from August 12, 2020, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed Russia’s announcement to skip phases 2 and 3 in rushed vaccine trial, Chromebook and device shipment delays for schools and individuals, and the wonders of Neverware’s CloudReady software for running ChromeOS on older Intel-based computer hardware. Microsoft’s new Surface Duo laptop, changes to Google Play Music, and screentime for kids (and adults) during the pandemic were also discussed. Additional topics included the limits of home connectivity bandwidth, the importance of “filtering the exoflood” of polluted information around us, and recent government initiated interruptions in Internet connectivity and social media platform access in Belarus following a contested election. Tips for upgrading a 2020 iMac, a recent webinar on “Know Your Power: Know Your Rights” (shared by Peggy George,) and Charter Telecom’s push for residential Internet data caps with the FCC were also highlighted. Our show was live streamed and archived simultaneously on YouTube Live as well as our Facebook Live page via StreamYard.com. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights (normally) if you can at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC. All shownotes are available on http://edtechSR.com/links.
Welcome to episode 113 of the EdTech Situation Room from November 7, 2018, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach), Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) and special guest Jason Kern (@jasonmkern) discussed the past week’s technology news through an educational lens. Topics for the show included virtual reality in the classroom, the use of social media worldwide to radicalize politics, hardware updates from Apple’s special event last week, and our need for media literacy everywhere. Anya Kamenetz’ excellent response article, “What the Times got wrong about kids and phones” was also highlighted. Professional courtesy with cell phones at meetings and in the classroom, the NetFlix documentary “The Eighties,” and Flickr’s important announcement about free and pro accounts rounded out the show. Geeks of the week included free “Unity” software licenses for schools, Raspberry Pi projects, the browser extension “OneTab,” and the “Pulse” SMS app on Android. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can (normally) at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC.
Welcome to episode 109 of the EdTech Situation Room from October 3, 2018, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) and special guest Tye Campbell (@TyeJCampbell) discussed the past week’s technology news through an educational lens. Co-host Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) was on special assignment. Topics highlighted in this week’s show included the recent “Presidential Emergency Text Alert,” paging and alert messaging at school, and Apple’s latest iOS 12 which brings improved performance at the price of faster battery consumption. The new screentime monitoring tools in iOS12, school conversations on digital citizenship relating to character education, and school partnerships with “The Social Institute” helping students, faculty and parents embrace a balanced approach to social media an technology were also discussed. A shout out to ATLIS (The Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools) and their upcoming conference in April 2019 in Dallas, net neutrality in light of new European legislation relating to “the right to be forgotten” and the GDPR, protection of personal information / privacy, and digital identity verification via Yubikey were topics rounding out the show. Geeks of the week included iOS 12 Screen Time Controls (Tye) and recommended actions for scholars who are victims of online trolling (Wes). Check out edtechSR.com/links for all shownotes, including those listed below. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can (normally) at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC. Note we will be starting earlier than usual occasionally to accommodate guest schedules in upcoming weeks, so please check Twitter for those updates.
“Suggested Discussion Questions” for our Upper and Middle Division teachers at Casady School addressing our revised Responsible Use Policy with students during advisory time.
Welcome to episode 48 of the EdTech Situation Room from April 19, 2017, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wes Fryer (@wfryer) discussed the implications of Apple’s announcement to make all iLife apps free for both MacOS and iOS, Microsoft’s new licensing strategy for Windows 10 and the “Creator’s Update,” and the potential for Google’s AutoDraw website to be used for sketchnoting inside and outside the classroom. Additional topics included a recent study suggesting kids who use touchscreen devices sleep less at night, a New York Times article on a paper suggesting social media is NOT contributing significantly to political polarization, and the X-Prize victory by an underdog family team who created a “tri-corder” to accurately diagnose thirteen different medical conditions. Jason and Wes also discussed two cell phone company related articles, including Verizon’s announcement to purchase tons of new fiber and bring 1 Gbps connectivity to homes via 5G wireless technology, and T-Mobile’s recent spectrum purchases boosting their LTE network coverage. Geeks of the week included a new Chromebook for Jason (HP Chromebook 13 G1) and upcoming creativity strand presentations for the K-12 Online Conference by Wes. Despite some Fryer home connectivity challenges tonight we made it through the show! Thanks to Peggy, Ben and Simon who joined us live from Arizona, Colorado and Australia! Next week Wes will be “out on assignment” but Jason will carry on with some special guests. Please follow @edtechSR on Twitter to stay up to date about our upcoming show schedule. Thanks for listening (and possibly watching) the EdTech Situation Room!
Welcome to episode 47 of the EdTech Situation Room from April 12, 2017, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week special guest Beth Holland (@brholland) joined Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wes Fryer (@wfryer) for discussions focusing on Anderson Cooper’s recent 60 Minutes Episode “What is ‘brain hacking?’ Tech insiders on why you should care,” new IoT (Internet of Things) home hacking episodes, the federated (and FREE / open source) social networking platform “Mastodon,” and helpful articles on finding a secure VPN to protect your privacy. Geeks of the Week included realtimeboard.com (from Beth), Google Flights (from Jason) and an $18 6 port smart ID USB charging hub (from Wes). Check our shownotes below for all referenced links from the show, which are also available on https://edtechsr.com/links. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates. Next week we’ll be back on Wednesday night at our regular time: 10 pm Eastern, 9 pm Central, 8 pm Mountain, 7 pm Pacific. If you listen to and enjoy the show, please provide us with feedback by submitting our short listener survey on http://wfryer.me/edtechsr.
Welcome to episode 39 of the EdTech Situation Room from February 1, 2017, where technology news meets educational analysis. Visit https://edtechsr.com/links to access all referenced links from our show. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach), Jennifer Carey (@teacherjencarey) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed screen time and a recent response by Derrick Willard (@dwillard) to a provocative Time editorial. They also discussed the recent sunsetting announcement of Club Penguin by Disney, the importance of parents getting into the virtual worlds their kids are playing in and exploring, and Microsoft’s forthcoming “Windows 10 Cloud” product release. The recent successful ransomeware attack on an Austrian hotel, hacking the Internet of Things, uses for digital assistants like Google Home and Alexa, the importance of 2 step verification, and the dangers of Google Authenticator were also addressed. In a “Geek of the Week” bonus moment, Jason shared the $30 bluetooth lightbulb and speaker (from Amazon) which he’s using now at home. Official geeks of the week included the new NPR series “The Privacy Paradox” (Jen), updates to Google Voice (Jason), and “Advanced / Cyborg / Centaur Chess” (Wes) via Kevin Kelly’s (@kevin2kelly) outstanding book, “The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.” Please refer to our podcast shownotes for links to all referenced articles, videos, and resources from the show, and take a few minutes to complete our listener survey on http://wfryer.me/edtechsr.
Welcome to episode 22 of the EdTech Situation Room from September 14, 2016, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) had a special show. Rather than discuss a variety of recent technology news headlines, episode 22 focused exclusively on Dr. Nicholas Kardaras’ August 31, 2016 article for TIME Magazine, “Screens In Schools Are a $60 Billion Hoax.” The article highlights many of the key points in Kardaras’ newly published book, “Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction is Hijacking Our Kids—and How to Break the Trance.” Jason and Wes highlighted several of the valid points from the article regarding screentime, the powerful physiological influence of digital screens, and digital addictions. They also acknowledged misdirected educational technology movements, like the interactive whiteboard craze of the 2000’s and the race for educational technology companies to move standardized student assessments onto digital screens. Jason and Wes took issue, however, with Kardaras’ assertion that students in schools are better served with completely screen-free learning experiences. Referencing Neil Postman, John Seely Brown and other authors, they discussed how part of our obligation as educators it to prepare students to navigate the maze of digital distractions and information flows which characterize our modern age. Wes discussed the transformative benefits which digital technology can bring in differentiating reading experiences for students, and highlighted the example of his wife’s 3rd and 4th grade classroom in Oklahoma City which serves homeless students and families. Shelly Fryer (@sfryer) has taught in a 1:1 iPad classroom for the past 3 years, and uses apps like News-O-Matic to provide developmentally appropriate reading articles for students. Her students also use their technology tools to make and create, showing and sharing their learning and their developing skills. Jason took on the question, “If everything Kardaras’ argues is true, then what for schools?” He pointed out we can’t “un-invent” digital screens, so it’s important to help students become more saavy, intentional, and constructive users of digital screens to support learning and healthy living. Geeks of the week included amazing and affordable headphones from Monoprice (via Jason) and the free coding app for young kids, PBS Scratch Jr (from Wes). Check out past episode shownotes on https://edtechsr.com/links and be sure to follow @edtechSR for updates on Twitter http://twitter.com/edtechsr as well as on Facebook. If you listen to the show, please submit our listener survey using the shortened link http://wfryer.me/edtechsr which forwards to a Google Form. Your feedback and suggestions on the show are appreciated!
